Re: Article: Protecting Public Health and Global Transportation Systems During an Influenza Pandemic
Just a portion of questions that need to be answered from the draft for the aviation sub-sector.
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essential services, functions, and processes
? Each airline and airport may be effected and react differently during a pandemic influenza. Each entity is interdependent and its actions will have impacts on the others.
For example, an airline may transfer resources between airports to support shifts in passenger or cargo demand. How would this change affect the airports in question as well as the communities they serve?
? How might a pandemic affect demand for air transportation and how would these impacts affect your revenue and operations?
o Might disease containment strategies (or the? hassle factor ?associated with them) and public fear reduce demand for non-essential travel or constrain the numbers of passengers you can transport safely?
o What are the impacts on passenger demand if air travel-intensive businesses restrict travel, reduce operations, or close temporarily during a pandemic influenza wave?
o Could media attention/public perception affect demand in the first days/weeks of a suspected outbreak, even if no pandemic influenza results (e.g., the outbreak is later proven to be a false alarm, the virus mutates to become less virulent, or the outbreak is contained effectively)?
o What are the potential challenges from multiple pandemic influenza waves lasting two to three months and recurring over a period of 12-18 months? How quickly or not will aviation demand rebound during the recovery period between each wave?
o What are the potential impacts on major tourist and recreational destinations, such as Hawaii and Nevada? How might this impact passenger demand?
o How might geographic and population differences affect passenger and cargo demand levels, routes, frequency, load factors, and/or aircraft size? Would rural isolated areas be more dependent on air service for essential goods and personal transportation? Would residents/businesses in urban/suburban corridors be more likely to shift to other modes?
o How would impacts on international manufacturers and shippers affect domestic as well as international aviation?
? Might there be increases in demand or need for certain services you provide, including:
o on-demand air transportation of essential medical personnel and supplies;
o cargo operations, including the delivery on essential and non-essential retail goods resulting from an increased public use of on-line electronic ordering;
o private aircraft and/or service from small airports from passengers hoping to avoid public contact; and
o cargo aircraft to deliver goods otherwise shipped as belly cargo on passenger airlines where commercial passenger carriers have suspended or reduced operations?
? How can an airline or airport adapt its services to better support the community, region, or nation?
o Can passenger aircraft be used to haul appropriate types of essential cargo?
o Might airlines, with government public health guidance on appropriate spacing and possible economic support, reduce the number of passengers per flight to enhance social distancing and minimize person-to-person close contact?
o Can airports facilitate social distancing in terminals (e.g., blocking off or removing every other seat in waiting areas)?
o If international flights are routed to airports with CDC Quarantine Stations, can other airports shift essential equipment and personnel support to the ports of entry?
o In collaboration with government officials, can airlines, airports and freight forwarders prioritize cargo handling so the most essential goods/products (e.g., healthcare supplies and water treatment utility repair parts) are delivered first?
o How might the sector and the government together ensure that essential air transportation remains available to all regions, including rural areas?
? How will pandemic influenza affect specialty aviation carriers (e.g., air ambulance, fire fighting, fixed/rotary wing safety inspectors, and offshore oilrig support)? How will priority delivery for essential items (i.e., fuel, repair parts) be maintained for these specialty carriers?
Essential Assets and Equipment
? How will a change in demand levels affect your need for equipment (e.g., fewer aircraft would be needed if you consolidate routes or reduce flight frequency on certain routes; fewer airport fire and rescue vehicles would be needed if runways shut down)?
? Can you modify typical processes temporarily to sustain essential assets and equipment? For example, can you operate your essential aviation equipment differently to decrease maintenance/repair requirements (e.g., consolidate routes, reduce flights on certain routes, operate in daylight hours only, rotate aircraft in and out of service)?
o Can your organization close its non-essential facilities and consolidate operations and supplies? For example, can airlines consolidate and operate shared aviation maintenance sites at each airport or can major airline hub operators support all others at a large airport?
o What recurring maintenance requirements exist for the facilities used to house passengers, cargo, workers, equipment, and maintenance operations? Do they demand a continuous level of operations, maintenance, and repair?
o What backup options exist in cases where essential equipment such as heating, cooling and ventilation systems (HVAC) break down?
o Have you developed standard operating and emergency procedures for your essential processes and equipment under other types of emergencies? If so, have you distributed them broadly to managers and staff? Can they be adapted to pandemic flu scenarios lasting 6 months or longer?
o Have you considered primary/supporting asset/equipment challenges, including availability of operators, fuel/electricity, emergency part maintenance, critical radar repair parts, de-icing equipment, FAA/TSA security/safety equipment; and data management systems?
o Have you assessed all contractor-managed primary and supporting aviation systems with your contractors and other key stakeholders to identify potential single-point failures in their support networks (e.g., contractors operating intermodal cargo transfer sites, operational support equipment, aircraft catering suppliers, aircraft and airport cleaning and flight-line refueling crews)?
? Do you possess sufficient operational capacity in your essential equipment and assets to sustain functions and reduce demand on equipment and workers? For example, if essential equipment fails and repair parts become difficult to obtain, are there sufficient numbers of aircraft and support vehicles to rotate in service or ?cannibalize??
? What is the frequency for routine maintenance on essential primary/secondary assets and equipment? How critical is it to perform on this schedule? Can you safely defer or accelerate essential equipment scheduled maintenance on short notice?
? What is the frequency and intensity of typical safety inspections for key infrastructure such as aircraft, runways, control towers, radar, and electronics? In an extreme situation, with appropriate government waivers and other safety oversight, can you safely defer any of these to maximize availability of essential equipment and workers?
? Do your emergency equipment operating plans adequately address pandemic influenza conditions? Can you effectively incorporate social distancing strategies for workers and enhanced workplace cleaning into protocols for operating and maintaining equipment?
? With what other entities (airlines, airports, specialty aviation companies, such as air tour operators) can you share maintenance and repair facilities, equipment/supplies and/or workers?
(and then there are: Essential Materials & Supplies, Essential Worker Groups...)
My question: Have you told
all your employees they need to be preparing for:
? Susceptibility to the pandemic influenza virus will be universal.
? Once sustained person-to-person transmission begins, the disease will spread rapidly around the globe.
? The clinical disease attack rate will likely be 30 percent or higher in the overall population during the influenza pandemic.
? Rates of absenteeism will depend on the severity of the influenza pandemic. In a severe pandemic, absenteeism attributable to illness, the need to care for ill family members and fear of infection may reach 40 percent during the peak weeks of a community outbreak, with lower rates of absenteeism during the weeks before and after the peak.
? Outbreaks will last 8-12 weeks in affected communities.
? Multiple waves (periods where community outbreaks strike across the country) will likely occur with each lasting 2-3 months.
ffice:smarttags" /><st1:stockticker>CFR</st1:stockticker> as even instant death is not an impediment to a pathogen as long as it occurs in an evolutionary dead-end host. The upshot of this is that each new zoonotics emergence can start off with virtually any level of clinical severity – from pinkeye in H7N7 to ARDS in H5N1 – and until equilibrium with the new host is reached we must devise plans to cope with both extremes.
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